By Jay Patrick Clark

Time to move that cell phone out of your hip pocket, buddy, if you expect to sire children anytime soon. At least that seems to be the message of three studies linking cell phone use with decreased male fertility.

One study exposed male rats to an hour a day of cell phone-like microwaves and found a significant decrease in sperm count and testicular mass after 52 days. The second study, on humans, found technicians exposed to high-frequency microwaves (higher than those of cell phones) for an average of eight years had lower sperm counts and sperm motility and increased abnormal sperm morphology.

All three of these factors improved after three exposure-free months. The third study found a decrease in sperm motility in 13 men who used a mobile phone for six hours a day for five days.

In each case, the researchers acknowledged the preliminary nature of the results, but ethical issues may create insuperable barriers to more human-based studies.